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conuly
Why should I? I'm a fan of the new show, I'm not a fan of the old show, and what other people decide to watch or not watch is their own business. Kinda like sex, or religion.
However, I can't let the recent kerfuffle (nice word, huh?) go completely uncommented on. Mostly because it looks like a group of people has decided to make the old-show-fans look stupid....
The new show is very different from the old. The bad guys have reasons, the good guys do bad things, either by mistake or because they're not perfect, it's a much darker show.
The most recent episode was the darkest yet, I think. Pegasus. It involves rape, among other thin... no, the rape's pretty much it.
I know a few people had PTSD reactions from watching the show. And I feel bad about that, I really do. Even having never gone through any sort of sexual assault, or PTSD, I can vaguely say that "yeah, that's really bad". Besides, the only other thing I can say (which I'm about to anyway) sounds a lot like victim-blaming, and I don't want to do that, I don't think that's right.
Except... if I knew there was something in my past that could be triggering, I'd do my best to stay away from things that'd cause that sort of reaction. A lot of the people who had their reactions say they had no way of knowing that the rape scene was there, or coming up. Except that *I* knew it was coming up, because everything in the episode led up to it - seeing the beaten, battered, catatonic Six; listening to those jerks joke around about how they stood in line to rape her... it seemed obvious to me. I felt sick during parts of that episode, and I don't have anything to make the situation worse. In addition, there was a content warning right before that scene. Yes, you say, many shows issue content warnings for nothing, but just as many don't. After the sick-making scenes leading up to the rape, I would think people would be prepared to take the content warning seriously.
But this isn't me. Maybe it wasn't as clear to everyone. Again, I feel bad for people who saw that and who shouldn't've.
We're going to move on to the topic now, since we've cleared away the backstory here.
Apparently, a Big Forum which had areas for both shows, despite being in favor of the old show, has decided, since Pegasus, to close their NewShow forum. That's fine. As Moore says, that's their choice. (And I'll digress a little to say how much I respect Ronald Moore for responding calmly and politely to them - something certain fans of either show should strive to emulate.)
For the sake of completeness, here's the letter they wrote to Moore.
They have the right to not like the new show, and to have disliked that episode, for any reasons. I'm curious, though, about some of their stated reasons:
We have allowed the entertainment industry to tell us that it was "ok" to have a baby's neck snapped (the script originally called for Number Six to drive her finger through the baby's skull); it was "ok" to draw a parallel of sympathy toward the terrorists who carried out the Sept 11 attacks - in other words, we got what we deserved; but, the straw that snapped the proverbial camel's back was the use of rape as a military torture tool in the "Pegasus" episode.
We will NOT allow the entertainment industry to tell us that it is "ok", at any time, for a rape to occur. It does not "advance the story", it glorifies a horrible aggression upon another human being.
I'm not sure where the show has ever said that any of this stuff was "ok" (though I'll take the time to note that terrorists don't just do their terrorism for shits and giggles, and finding out *why* they do it is a good first step in stopping it) - if we accept that statement, why not accept the statement that both shows have told us that genocide is "ok", simply because they portray it?
I found the neck-snapping scene in the mini-series to be disturbing. I found every aspect of the rape in Pegasus to be disturbing and sickening - moreso the stupid joking than the rape itself. I see that our protagonists are also disgusted by the rape of Six, even though she's their enemy. I don't see that we're supposed to accept the idea that rape is okay. Rape is something that happens, even by supposedly civilized people, as certain recent events have made painfully clear, but okay? I don't see that.
In their letter to Moore, they say much the same:
In the miniseries, you depicted the murder of an infant in what you perceived to be an effort to show just how EVIL the Cylon race is supposed to be. We feel this was nothing more than "shock jock" material.
Shocking? I'm not sure. I found it disturbing, certainly, but given what's on much of TV everywhere, I can't say I was *shocked* - and I'm not sure why the killing of a single infant is more shocking than the genocide of the entire human race, billions and billions of people. If the baby hadn't been killed then, it certainly would've died, probably more painfully, just a few hours later.
We have tolerated fans of your show giving lavish praise to your show, and quite at our own sufferance.
Just to interject, I'm not sure that people giving lavish praise to something they like is something that needs to be "tolerated" - at their sufferance, no less! If they didn't want that, why did they set up the forum for the new show to begin with?
Yes, you may have spit and defecated all over a property we have long treasured for nearly thirty years. For all your airs, all you have served to do is destroy the name of something that was once considered a "family friendly" show.
See, this is why I'm posting my entry. Well, part of it, anyway... I don't like it when people who don't like something need to act like its very existance was only brought about to spite them. It's a bit self-centered. As for family friendly, I'll take a leaf from Ron Moore's book and point out that a show that airs at 10pm and which is about genocide really doesn't have to be family friendly.
Now that the excerpts are gone, I will reiterate something I've said many, many, many times before: Showing something isn't the same as promoting it.
And yet, this seems to be a classic flaw. The book Zel shows premarital sex, therefore it encourages it, despite the heavy-duty, immediate consequences of that sex. Star Wars shows Han shooting first (SHUT UP!), therefore it encourages people to shoot first. Lolita shows a pedophile, therefore....
This line of reasoning is at best, childish. It only seeks to stop the rest of us from thinking. You may, and should, choose not to watch, listen to, or read something that makes you uncomfortable. If you really don't want to read books about whatever, then you shouldn't do that. But to be so intellectually dishonest that you feel you must tell other people not to read the book because "well, it shows something I disagree with, so it must be promoting it" is completely unacceptable.
So much so that I even understand the insults headed towards that forum over that letter. It's hard to show respect for people who divide the world up so simply.
This has been a lot of talk about not much. Sorry about that.
However, I can't let the recent kerfuffle (nice word, huh?) go completely uncommented on. Mostly because it looks like a group of people has decided to make the old-show-fans look stupid....
The new show is very different from the old. The bad guys have reasons, the good guys do bad things, either by mistake or because they're not perfect, it's a much darker show.
The most recent episode was the darkest yet, I think. Pegasus. It involves rape, among other thin... no, the rape's pretty much it.
I know a few people had PTSD reactions from watching the show. And I feel bad about that, I really do. Even having never gone through any sort of sexual assault, or PTSD, I can vaguely say that "yeah, that's really bad". Besides, the only other thing I can say (which I'm about to anyway) sounds a lot like victim-blaming, and I don't want to do that, I don't think that's right.
Except... if I knew there was something in my past that could be triggering, I'd do my best to stay away from things that'd cause that sort of reaction. A lot of the people who had their reactions say they had no way of knowing that the rape scene was there, or coming up. Except that *I* knew it was coming up, because everything in the episode led up to it - seeing the beaten, battered, catatonic Six; listening to those jerks joke around about how they stood in line to rape her... it seemed obvious to me. I felt sick during parts of that episode, and I don't have anything to make the situation worse. In addition, there was a content warning right before that scene. Yes, you say, many shows issue content warnings for nothing, but just as many don't. After the sick-making scenes leading up to the rape, I would think people would be prepared to take the content warning seriously.
But this isn't me. Maybe it wasn't as clear to everyone. Again, I feel bad for people who saw that and who shouldn't've.
We're going to move on to the topic now, since we've cleared away the backstory here.
Apparently, a Big Forum which had areas for both shows, despite being in favor of the old show, has decided, since Pegasus, to close their NewShow forum. That's fine. As Moore says, that's their choice. (And I'll digress a little to say how much I respect Ronald Moore for responding calmly and politely to them - something certain fans of either show should strive to emulate.)
For the sake of completeness, here's the letter they wrote to Moore.
They have the right to not like the new show, and to have disliked that episode, for any reasons. I'm curious, though, about some of their stated reasons:
We have allowed the entertainment industry to tell us that it was "ok" to have a baby's neck snapped (the script originally called for Number Six to drive her finger through the baby's skull); it was "ok" to draw a parallel of sympathy toward the terrorists who carried out the Sept 11 attacks - in other words, we got what we deserved; but, the straw that snapped the proverbial camel's back was the use of rape as a military torture tool in the "Pegasus" episode.
We will NOT allow the entertainment industry to tell us that it is "ok", at any time, for a rape to occur. It does not "advance the story", it glorifies a horrible aggression upon another human being.
I'm not sure where the show has ever said that any of this stuff was "ok" (though I'll take the time to note that terrorists don't just do their terrorism for shits and giggles, and finding out *why* they do it is a good first step in stopping it) - if we accept that statement, why not accept the statement that both shows have told us that genocide is "ok", simply because they portray it?
I found the neck-snapping scene in the mini-series to be disturbing. I found every aspect of the rape in Pegasus to be disturbing and sickening - moreso the stupid joking than the rape itself. I see that our protagonists are also disgusted by the rape of Six, even though she's their enemy. I don't see that we're supposed to accept the idea that rape is okay. Rape is something that happens, even by supposedly civilized people, as certain recent events have made painfully clear, but okay? I don't see that.
In their letter to Moore, they say much the same:
In the miniseries, you depicted the murder of an infant in what you perceived to be an effort to show just how EVIL the Cylon race is supposed to be. We feel this was nothing more than "shock jock" material.
Shocking? I'm not sure. I found it disturbing, certainly, but given what's on much of TV everywhere, I can't say I was *shocked* - and I'm not sure why the killing of a single infant is more shocking than the genocide of the entire human race, billions and billions of people. If the baby hadn't been killed then, it certainly would've died, probably more painfully, just a few hours later.
We have tolerated fans of your show giving lavish praise to your show, and quite at our own sufferance.
Just to interject, I'm not sure that people giving lavish praise to something they like is something that needs to be "tolerated" - at their sufferance, no less! If they didn't want that, why did they set up the forum for the new show to begin with?
Yes, you may have spit and defecated all over a property we have long treasured for nearly thirty years. For all your airs, all you have served to do is destroy the name of something that was once considered a "family friendly" show.
See, this is why I'm posting my entry. Well, part of it, anyway... I don't like it when people who don't like something need to act like its very existance was only brought about to spite them. It's a bit self-centered. As for family friendly, I'll take a leaf from Ron Moore's book and point out that a show that airs at 10pm and which is about genocide really doesn't have to be family friendly.
Now that the excerpts are gone, I will reiterate something I've said many, many, many times before: Showing something isn't the same as promoting it.
And yet, this seems to be a classic flaw. The book Zel shows premarital sex, therefore it encourages it, despite the heavy-duty, immediate consequences of that sex. Star Wars shows Han shooting first (SHUT UP!), therefore it encourages people to shoot first. Lolita shows a pedophile, therefore....
This line of reasoning is at best, childish. It only seeks to stop the rest of us from thinking. You may, and should, choose not to watch, listen to, or read something that makes you uncomfortable. If you really don't want to read books about whatever, then you shouldn't do that. But to be so intellectually dishonest that you feel you must tell other people not to read the book because "well, it shows something I disagree with, so it must be promoting it" is completely unacceptable.
So much so that I even understand the insults headed towards that forum over that letter. It's hard to show respect for people who divide the world up so simply.
This has been a lot of talk about not much. Sorry about that.
